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Mayor Lionheart
Mayor Lionheart, also known by his full name, Mayor Leodore Lionheart, is the longstanding mayor of Zootopia, and an anti-hero of the film. His success can be attributed to his affirmative-action styled policies and espousing equality. This could be considered lip-service, as outside of his noble public persona, he is a proud and boisterous career politician that displays sarcasm and mistreats his inferiors, like Bellwether. He is also willing to do almost anything to maintain power and uses his size and ferocious lion image when needed for intimidation. His Mammal Inclusion Initiative ''possibly played a role in Judy Hopps being allowed into the Police Academy, which he quickly took credit for and stressed. Much to Chief Bogo's chagrin, he assigns her to Precinct 1 and under his jurisdiction. Lionheart is voiced by American actor J.K. Simmons. Role in the Film Lionheart first appears at Judy's graduation from the Zootopia Police Academy, praising her as his first police officer to be a rabbit. When Bellwether starts talking to Judy on stage, Lionheart rather rudely pushes Bellwether aside and takes photos with Judy. Later, as Judy and Nick enter the Cliffside Asylum, they find that all the predators that have gone missing, including Emmitt Otterton and Renato Manchas, have been illegally imprisoned by wolf mercenaries per Lionheart's orders, and have somehow lost their sanity and become mindlessly violent and "savage" (it is later revealed they were darted with a psychotropic serum by Bellwether's henchman). Lionheart then enters the asylum with Dr. Madge Honey Badger, and is recorded on Judy's phone. Dr. Madge suggests that Lionheart reveal the truth to the public before matters get worse, but Lionheart refuses to do so out of fear of losing his career as mayor. However, Judy's phone starts to ring and she is nearly exposed as Lionheart exits with Dr. Badger. After Judy and Nick escape and warn the ZPD, Lionheart and his accomplices get arrested, with Lionheart being removed from office and Bellwether raising to power in his place. He protests his innocence, stating that he wanted to protect Zootopia, but Judy unsympathetically accuses him of caring for his job and nothing more. After Bellwether's prey-supremacist scheme is exposed, an imprisoned Lionheart is interviewed on the matter by a reporter. He explains that he had no knowledge of Bellwether's plot, but confesses to have illegally imprisoned the savage predators, confidently declaring it was "a classic, doing the wrong thing for the right reason kind of a deal". Despite this, he remains in jail, as seen in the credits. However, despite his previous intense fear of losing his reputation, he now appears rather unfazed by his fate. Official Bio ''Mayor is the noble leader of Zootopia, who coined the city’s mantra that Judy Hopps lives by: "In Zootopia, anyone can be anything."http://movies.disney.com/zootopia Relationships Judy Hopps Judy Hopps is the ZPD's first rabbit officer, and is thus awarded her badge in a ceremony attended by the Mayor. His mammal inclusion initiative is cited as the reasoning behind her graduation, though to what extent this is true relies heavily upon how highly Judy's drill instructor thought of her by the end of her course. Nevertheless, Lionheart shows no signs of prejudice towards Judy, as he readily and quite happily accepts her into the ZPD, even rather proudly noting her to be the first rabbit to join the Force. Judy is the officer who then ends up incriminating Lionheart in the missing mammal cases, and he is seen protesting for his innocence as the larger members of the ZPD take him away. Bellwether Lionheart appears to treat his assistant mayor, Dawn Bellwether, with little respect, effectively ordering her around more like a secretary and a stooge than an actual assistant mayor, which Bellwether alludes to. In addition to dumping work on her, he will also push her aside when in public, stealing the spotlight. Lionheart also has Dawn Bellwether's office located in a small utility room with a loud water heater with stacks of file boxes lining the wall outside her office. He also occasionally calls Bellwether "Smellwether", especially when he is annoyed with her. When she does similarly, calling him "Lionfart", it is assumed that he took it badly from Bellwether's assertion that it was not a good day for her. However, though Lionheart tends to treat Bellwether unequally, he appears to make at least some effort to keep his temper with her and show compassion towards her. At one point in the film, when ordering her to take care of other matters while he tends to something more important, he does so gruffly, but somewhat sympathetically adds "please" to his demands at the end, in response to his own roughness. Later, Bellwether mentions that Lionheart made an effort to actually get her a gift, though it was merely a mug labelled "World's Greatest Dad", with the "Dad" scribbled and replaced with "Assistant Mayor' through a marker. It is most likely that Lionheart was being truthful when he denied any knowledge of Bellwether's prey-supremacist scheme, and she was plotting behind his back to take power from him in the first place. Chief Bogo Lionheart isn't seen interacting with Bogo very often, but from what the two say about each other, they evidently do not quite see eye to eye. While Lionheart evidently respects Bogo as an incorruptible upholder of the law, this ends up causing a distinct lack of trust from Lionheart to Bogo, as he is unwilling to tell the Police chief about what he knows in regards to the missing mammals. Bogo has a certain deal of animosity towards Lionheart also. Bogo seems to see Lionheart as an overbearing presence on the force, seeing Judy's assignment to him as an affront to his authority as police chief, saying "Do you think the mayor asked what I wanted before he assigned you to me?" While Bogo does not show any deal of gratification while he arrests the Mayor, it is assumed that he is glad to be rid of Lionheart's overbearing presence. Dr. Madge Honey Badger Lionheart is seen taking an afternoon off in order meet with Madge to gauge progress on discovering what is making the predators go savage. He shares a fairly one-sided relationshp with her, largely thanks to their respective size, allowing Lionheart to tower over Madge and for Madge to be fairly subservient to him. It is Madge's assertion that the savagery may be something to do with biology which ends up causing Lionheart's impeachment. Trivia * Lionheart is the 52nd mayor of Zootopia. *Lionheart's position as mayor originally went to Mayor Swinton in early versions of the film. *Lionheart claims that he invented the slogan "anyone can be anything". However, according to young Judy Hopps, the founders of Zootopia invented this slogan. It's possible that he adopted the slogan to earn himself voters. However, this is questionable, considering the fact that the film makers have directly stated that Lionheart "coined" the slogan. *Lionheart has small scars on his nose; in real life, a male adult lion would obtain these scars from fighting with other lions over territory and pride members. *When designing Lionheart, Disney animators looked to and got inspiration from Mufasa in Disney's The Lion King. It is also possible that certain features about him, such as his name, personality and appearance, were also inspired by King Richard the Lionhearted from another Disney film, [http://disney..com/wiki/Robin_Hood_(1973_film) Robin Hood]. *Lionheart's first name is a combination of "Leo" and "Theodore". *Lionheart having the aid of Bellwether is most likely a reference to the Biblical passage "The Lion and the Lamb". **Rich Moore has said that it is a bit of a reference to the old saying "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb".Rich Moore via Twitter, May 8th 2016 Quotes Gallery References Category:Males Category:Politicians Category:Supporting Characters Category:Characters Category:Lions Category:Cats Category:Predators